The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday ordered issue of notice to the State government on PIL petitions filed by a group of parents questioning the laws that make the study of Kannada language compulsory even for students studying in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) in the State.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice M.G.S. Kamal passed the order on the petition filed by Somashekar C. and 19 other parents of children who are studying in schools affiliated to the CBSE and the CISCE.
The petitioners have questioned the Constitutional validity of the provisions of the Kannada Language Learning (KLL) Act, 2015, the KLL Rules, 2017, and the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Issue of No Objection Certificate and Control) Rules, 2022, through which the government has imposed study of Kannada as a compulsory language from Class I to X for all the schools, including CBSE and CISCE schools.
The petitioners have pointed out anomalies in these laws while pointing out that the KLL Act and the rules make Kannada compulsory as either a first or second language and the NOC Rules make it compulsory as either second or third language.
The main contention of the petitioners is that these three laws were contrary to the provisions of the Karnataka Education (KE) Act, 1983, which excluded the schools affiliated to the CBSE and the CISCE from its ambit. The petitioners have also stated that the High Court had recently held as unconstitutional application of some of the rules relating to fees, etc. made to CBSE and CISCE schools, and private unaided schools by amending the KE Act in 1998.
It has been pointed out in the petition that the High Court last year stayed the State government’s 2021 Order, issued citing the National Educational Policy 2020, of making Kannada a compulsory subject for undergraduate courses after the Union government made it clear to the court that the NEP had no provision to make any language as compulsory.
Stating that it would be difficult for students, whose mother tongue is not Kannada, and those who join schools in Karnataka during the midstream of their primacy education, to study Kannada as prescribed in these laws, the petitioners have complained that the State authorities are threatening CBSE and CISCE schools of withdrawing the NOC if they failed to teach Kannada as a compulsory subject.
